Michele Bachmann - Rare GOP Lovable Little Fuzz Ball

Extracted from an article by Kathleen Hennessey: When Michele Bachmann [R-MN] took the podium at a rally against health legislation this month, she dutifully hit the highlights of the Republican argument against the bill: It's too expensive, it will depress wages, it punishes the middle class. But because she is Michele Bachmann, she did not stop there.

In less than eight minutes, the Minnesota congresswoman told the cheering crowd of conservative activists that the Democratic healthcare bill isn't just bad policy -- it's unconstitutional. She invoked Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade," though it memorializes a suicide mission. She dissed the United Nations, recalled Elian Gonzalez's journey from Cuba, and offered this holiday greeting: "That is our wish for fellow citizens here in the United States -- for freedom, not for government enslavement!" The crowd roared.

. . .  A new GOP website aimed at rebutting President Obama's jobs proposal, which features only a few lawmakers, includes Bachmann along with Republican leaders. And recently, the Republican National Committee put Bachmann on a conference call to discuss healthcare with a host of grass-root groups, including tea party activists.  "There's no question that congresswoman Bachmann fires up the base," said LeRoy Coleman, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "She's a powerful and galvanizing voice for this party."

That is not how all Republicans see Bachmann, 53, who once said that she was "hot for Jesus" and is quick to call Obama's governing plans "socialism." Some want to keep her at arm's length.  When Bachmann declared that she would ignore almost all questions on the census form, calling it an unconstitutional effort to collect personal data, three fellow House Republicans called her stance "illogical, illegal and not in the best interest of our country."

. . . Taking up issues outside the mainstream, she proposed a constitutional amendment that would bar the president from adopting a currency issued by an entity other than the United States. Bachmann had asserted that China wanted to create a "multinational" currency.

Last year, she introduced the "Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act," opposing a government-ordered phase-out of traditional light bulbs in favor of more efficient bulbs. Last spring, she worried about expanding AmeriCorps community service programs, calling them "reeducation camps for young people" and "politically correct forums." . . .

"Only Sarah Palin seems to send them into wilder convulsions of hate and arrogance and condescension," it read. Bachmann claims she is not intentionally provoking those convulsions. "I'm a lovable little fuzz ball," she told MinnPost .com -- borrowing a phrase that Rush Limbaugh has used to describe himself.

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HT ARRA News Service

Senator Brownback Address the Problems with Closing Guantanamo

Senator Brownback talked to bloggers today laying out the problems with closing the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility. The most pressing of these problems is what to do with the detainees. Senator Brownback explains that one commonly overlooked risk of bringing prisoners to U.S. prisons is that the surrounding prison communities may be subject to violent acts by groups making political statements about the prisoners' detention. He also explains that the Geneva Convention says that prisoners of war will not be held along with a general prison population. Senator Brownback lays out numerous reasons why closing Guantanamo is poorly thought out, and is decisively lacking a realistic and safe plan. The propsal also lacks support both in Congress and among the American people. A new Gallup poll shows that by a 2 to 1 margin Americans Oppose Closing Gitmo and Moving Prisoners to U.S.

This call is worth listening to as one may be surprised at the number of solid reasons the Senator gives for opposing the Obama adminstration's call to close Guantanamo.
Blogger Call with Senator Brownback

Brownback Talks Guantanamo and Foreign Policy « Purple People Vote

Campaigning with a Good Humored Veteran

Excerpt from An Independent Call the story a New Hampshire Independent McCain Supporter

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Finally, on a more upbeat note, one trait that Senator McCain shares with a good number of his fellow veterans is a wicked sense of humor. While I’d like to say that my rationale for voting McCain was all high minded, I have to admit his sense of humor roped me in in the beginning. It’s probably part of the reason I enjoyed so many of the events with veterans; I’m sure there are veterans out there that lack a sense of humor, but overall I found them quite fun to be around.

During the general election I headed out to canvas a neighborhood with a veteran named Wes. He drove; I hopped out and knocked on the doors. We were canvassing Hampton Beach, a sort of unfortunate task in late Fall to early Winter, since not a lot of people stay at their beach house when the temperature drops. The sheets given to guide us to the appropriate address were accompanied by a brief survey asking whether the occupant was home and whom they were supporting for the different elected offices. The numbering of houses and condos on these sheets could be hard to follow, as locations were not necessarily listed in numerical order. Condo complexes could be particularly difficult to figure out. For instance, 5 Ocean Boulevard unit 16 could be a different page from 5 Ocean Boulevard unit 14, and unit 15 would simply not be on the list at all. The other problem was that you often had to be allowed or buzzed into many of these condo complexes. This basically meant looking for condos, routinely unoccupied due to the season that, even if occupied, could not be accessed. Consequently, we’d just drop a stack of literature on their doorstep, which will likely be picked up sometime this coming June.

So in the process of trying to locate a particular address on Ocean Boulevard, Wes backed his car up right into a pole. Looking down, arranging literature at the time, I was startled at the hit and said, ‘Ooo!’ and looked over at Wes. Thinking, this can’t be good we both hopped out of the car and took a look at his bumper. There was a new yellow stripe down the back side of his car and he said, “Ah, it’s just paint.” Relieved that it wasn’t too serious and that the damage didn’t trouble Wes, we hopped back into the car, and started trying to figure out where our next stop was. As we headed forward we spotted the house number of the next stop; Wes hit the brakes and his coffee flew off the dashboard, hitting me in the arm and soaking my left side. This time Wes looked stunned as I sat there looking at my sweater covered in coffee. “Well, it’s not hot,” I said. He handed me towels and clearly felt badly that I was wearing his drink. I had a t-shirt on under the sweater, so I hopped out of the car again, rung out the sweater and dried it off as best I could with some towels, put it back on, and hopped back into the car. While I smelled of coffee all day, the sweater was dark so it didn’t really matter.

We got through the rest of the doors without much incident, but had trouble finding one particular side street. Finally, we found the tiny narrow street in question; we headed down to the end where we eventually spotted the number of the home on a trashcan outside of a sliding glass door. I got out, knocked on the door, and a young guy, who apparently had just woken up, and was wearing a pair of old boxers and a t-shirt opened the door, saying nothing.

‘Hi, I’m a volunteer with the McCain campaign, and…’

‘No,’ he said and he shut the door and went back to bed.

I got back in the car and said, “Obama.”

As we started to head out of the narrow street I looked back, and Wes said, “Don’t worry, I won’t hit anything… …I saw you watching.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say anything.”

On the way back to the office he said, “You did a good job.”

“Thanks. You too…”

“Except for the pole.”

“Well that and the coffee, but other than that you did a good job.”

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Veteran's Good Humor

Online GOP Tech Summit Needs & Invites You!

Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service: The RNC Transition Team established working groups in six specific issue areas to further refine the ideas put forth at the GOP Tech Summit and to push the conversation to the next level. Ultimately, there will be a Republican user-generated report produced that we'll present to Chairman Steele and his team for their review and implementation as they see fit.

::: We can't do it alone. We need your help. :::
Join the discussion, on how the party can best embrace (and keep motivated) the grassroots and keep the CONSERVATIVE VOICE strong, at the GOP Tech Summit website.

Over the next seven days -- if you have an idea -- please share it. If you have a comment on another idea put forth, dig in. Let us heed the challenge put forth by Chairman Steele and leave no stone unturned. We are listening. I hope you'll be a part of this Revolution.
::: If you join us in this effort; then invite me as a friend :::

Fergus Cullen Calls Obama on Public Financing Flip Flop

From NH GOP...

CONCORD – Fergus Cullen, Chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party, made the following statement today on Barack Obama backing out of the public financing system:

“Today Barack Obama broke his promise to the American people by backing out of the public financing system he previously said he would participate in. Obama may claim to represent a ‘new’ kind of politics, but judging by his actions he is nothing more than a typical politician, willing to do or say anything when it’s politically expedient.”